Famous Devour Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Devour poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous devour poems. These examples illustrate what a famous devour poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
...e unfathomable worlds that lie
between the apple and the eye,
these are the only words we learn to say.
Each morning we devour the unknown. Each day
we find, and take, and spill, or spend, or lose,
a sunflower splendor of which none knows the source.
This cornucopia of air! This very heaven
of simple day! We do not know, can never know,
the alphabet to find us entrance there.
So, in the street, we stand and stare,
to greet a friend, and shake his hand,
yet know him beyond kno...Read more of this...
by
Aiken, Conrad
...oted in the fields,
And wallowed in the gardens of the King.
And ever and anon the wolf would steal
The children and devour, but now and then,
Her own brood lost or dead, lent her fierce teat
To human sucklings; and the children, housed
In her foul den, there at their meat would growl,
And mock their foster mother on four feet,
Till, straightened, they grew up to wolf-like men,
Worse than the wolves. And King Leodogran
Groaned for the Roman legions here again,
And ...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ord, he whom death seizes. (ll. 426b-41)
I reckon that he will, if he is allowed to win
in the war-hall, fearlessly devour Geatish warriors,
just as he has often devoured your glorious troops.
There will be no need at that moment to cover
my head, but he will have covered enough,
blotted with blood, if death seizes me—
he will bear me to bloody slaughter, thinking to taste me—
the solitary stalker will eat without the slightest regret,
marking his swampy lair. Ther...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...{6c} for his shall I be,
dyed in gore, if death must take me;
and my blood-covered body he’ll bear as prey,
ruthless devour it, the roamer-lonely,
with my life-blood redden his lair in the fen:
no further for me need’st food prepare!
To Hygelac send, if Hild {6d} should take me,
best of war-weeds, warding my breast,
armor excellent, heirloom of Hrethel
and work of Wayland. {6e} Fares Wyrd {6f} as she must.”
VII
HROTHGAR spake, the Scyldings’-helmet: --
“Fo...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...re's gates unbar,
Minions of the Morning Star.
In his prowess he exults,
And the multitude insults.
His impatient looks devour
Oft the humble and the poor,
And, seeing his eye glare,
They drop their few pale flowers
Gathered with hope to please
Along the mountain towers,
Lose courage, and despair.
He will never be gainsaid,
Pitiless, will not be stayed.
His hot tyranny
Burns up every other tie;
Therefore comes an hour from Jove
Which his ruthless will defies,
And the dogs of ...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...n the threatening flag set forth
Of Marquis Swantibore, the monster he
Who in the wood tied up his wife, to be
Devoured by wolves, together with the bull
Of which with jealousy his heart was full.
Even when woman took the place of heir
The tower of Corbus claimed the supper there;
'Twas law—the woman trembled, but must dare.
V.
THE MARCHIONESS MAHAUD.
Niece of the Marquis—John the Striker named—
Mahaud to-day the marquisate has cla...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...aming a liberty that still went back,
Whose numerous gorge could swallow in an hour
That island, which the sea cannot devour:
Then our Amphion issued out and sings,
And once he struck, and twice, the powerful strings.
The Commonwealth then first together came,
And each one entered in the willing frame;
All other matter yields, and may be ruled;
But who the minds of stubborn men can build?
No quarry bears a stone so hardly wrought,
Nor with such labour from its cent...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...had robbed those jewels of the crown;
Our merchantmen, lest they be burned, we drown.
So when the fire did not enough devour,
The houses were demolished near the Tower.
Those ships that yearly from their teeming hole
Unloaded here the birth of either Pole--
Furs from the north and silver from the west,
Wines from the south, and spices from the east;
From Gambo gold, and from the Ganges gems--
Take a short voyage underneath the Thames,
Once a deep river, now with tim...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.
Our prison strong, this huge convex of fire,
Outrageous to devour, immures us round
Ninefold; and gates of burning adamant,
Barred over us, prohibit all egress.
These passed, if any pass, the void profound
Of unessential Night receives him next,
Wide-gaping, and with utter loss of being
Threatens him, plunged in that abortive gulf.
If thence he scape, into whatever world,
Or unknown region, what remains him ...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...nfinite despair?
Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;
And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep
Still threatening to devour me opens wide,
To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven.
O, then, at last relent: Is there no place
Left for repentance, none for pardon left?
None left but by submission; and that word
Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame
Among the Spirits beneath, whom I seduced
With other promises and other vaunts
Than to submit, boasting I could subd...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...ed first; on each beast next, and fish, and fowl;
No homely morsels! and, whatever thing
The sithe of Time mows down, devour unspared;
Till I, in Man residing, through the race,
His thoughts, his looks, words, actions, all infect;
And season him thy last and sweetest prey.
This said, they both betook them several ways,
Both to destroy, or unimmortal make
All kinds, and for destruction to mature
Sooner or later; which the Almighty seeing,
From his transcendent seat t...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...which with her mighty power
Tam'd all the world, hath tam'd herself at last,
The prey of time, which all things doth devour.
Rome now of Rome is th' only funeral,
And only Rome of Rome hath victory;
Ne ought save Tyber hastening to his fall
Remains of all: O world's inconstancy.
That which is firm doth flit and fall away,
And that is flitting, doth abide and stay.
4
She, whose high top above the stars did soar,
One foot on Thetis, th' other on the Morning,
One...Read more of this...
by
Spenser, Edmund
...er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.
They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!
Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!
I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the ...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...d,
And o'er his lamplit desk in solitude
Deems that he sitteth in the Muses' bower:
And some the flames of earthly love devour,
Who have taken no kiss of Nature, nor renew'd
In the world's wilderness with heavenly food
The sickly body of their perishing power.
So none of all our company, I boast,
But now would mock my penning, could they see
How down the right it maps a jagged coast;
Seeing they hold the manlier praise to be
Strong hand and will, and the heart best when mos...Read more of this...
by
Bridges, Robert Seymour
...es hoppesteres, *burnt
The hunter strangled with the wilde bears:
The sow freting* the child right in the cradle; *devouring
The cook scalded, for all his longe ladle.
Nor was forgot, *by th'infortune of Mart* *through the misfortune
The carter overridden with his cart; of war*
Under the wheel full low he lay adown.
There were also of Mars' division,
The armourer, the bowyer*, and the smith, *maker of bows
That forgeth sharp swordes on his stith*. *anvil
And all abo...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...As the dark caverns of the deep
Suck the wild whirlpool in,
So did the deep and darksome pass
Devour the battle's mingled mass;
None linger now upon the plain
Save those who ne'er shall fight again.
XIX.
'Now westward rolls the battle's din,
That deep and doubling pass within.—
Minstrel, away! the work of fate
Is bearing on; its issue wait,
Where the rude Trosachs' dread defile
Opens on Katrine'...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...the formidable cripple great?
Yet should thy crimes succeed, should lawless power
Compass those ends thy greedy hopes devour,
Thy canting friends thy mortal foes would be,
Thy god and theirs will never long agree;
For thine, if thou hast any, must be one
That lets the world and human kind alone;
A jolly god that passes hours too well
To promise Heaven or threaten us with Hell,
That unconcerned can at rebellion sit
And wink at crimes he did himself commit.
A tyrant ...Read more of this...
by
Dryden, John
...ts,
Presses the sycophant base, tearing the friend from the friend.
Treason on innocence leers, with looks that seek to devour,
And the fell slanderer's tooth kills with its poisonous bite.
In the dishonored bosom, thought is now venal, and love, too,
Scatters abroad to the winds, feelings once god-like and free.
All thy holy symbols, O truth, deceit has adopted,
And has e'en dared to pollute Nature's own voices so fair,
That the craving heart in the tumult of gladness discov...Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
...e with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...hey cry i hope their eyes fall out and a million maggots that had made up their brains crawl from the empty holes and devour the flesh that covered the evil that passed itself off as a person that i probably tried to love ...Read more of this...
by
Giovanni, Nikki
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Devour poems.